Ghana’s post-L’Aquila aid effectiveness

At the L’Aquila G-8 summit in 2009, governments and organizations committed more than $20 billion to agriculture and rural development as a means of promoting food and nutrition security.

Within the overarching frameworks of the L’Aquila Food Security Initiative (AFSI), the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, and the Accra Agenda for Action, Ghana also committed to improving aid accountability and development effectiveness via “demand-driven development cooperation” and a “donor-coordinated approach.”

Why are most of the world’s poorest people located in tropical countries? When historical climate data became widely available in the late 1990s, IFPRI senior research fellow Margaret McMillan and coauthor William Masters of Tufts University were among the first to use it for the study of economic development.

Understanding Bangladesh’s rapid reduction in undernutrition

As a country’s income level rises, undernutrition rates are expected to fall. However, for years, the mystery of South Asia’s rising income levels existing concurrently with stubbornly high levels of child undernutrition has stumped researchers. Varying theories have flagged lack of proper sanitation, genetics, poor diets and food systems, and ineffective nutrition programming as culprits for the region’s lack of progress in reducing undernutrition. Bangladesh, though, remains a puzzling—yet positive–exception to this “Asian enigma.”